New York Fashion Week: Meet Manolo Blahnik’s Macaron Maker

The London event planner, 35 years old, is in New York this week for a very specific task.

To make macarons.

For Manolo Blahnik.

Yes, that Manolo Blahnik. The legendary Spanish shoe designer is making a rare New York fashion week appearance.

Mr. Blahnik’s brand is, of course, well known, if not coveted by more people than just Carrie Bradshaw. But it isn’t necessarily highly touted at the mass-market level.

“It is time for him” to step out more into the limelight, said Ms. O’Shaughnessy, who slogged along slushy West Village streets in very sensible, an very un-Blahnik teal Nike crosstrainers to an interview at the Norwood House, around the corner from a friend’s apartment where she is doing a bulk of her baking. His brand is “traditional, but moving forward.”

Ms. O’Shaughnessy, an Aussie by birth, originally started college with the intention of studying engineering. So how does she end up at a friend’s apartment in the West Village making roughly 200 macarons (vanilla, chocolate, salted caramel)?

“It’s the allure of the nightlife. It sucked me in. I wanted to be in that world. But it’s better to be working” in the environment Ms. O’Shaughnessy said of her company, Meredith Bespoke and Ohlala Macarons.

So, Ms. O’Shaughnessy went into business as special-events planner and coordinator. Mr. Blahnik has been a client of her company for a year and offered to fly her to New York and prepare her specialty for the show.

As an event planner “I’m on the sidelines. I’m there to say ‘everything is going to be ok.” she said, pointing to an electric blue spatula and whisk she had stowed away along with a pair of Manolos in her purse. A smart way to travel. On the flight from London, she debated trying to get her icing in tubes through customs on an unmarked carry-on . She thought better of it.

“New York feels like a city of possibilities,” she said. “I’m amused by it. Everything is slightly off the wall.”

The Blahnik brand has a great foothold, but certainly with the help of some well-made macarons will put its best foot forward at fashion week.